P
Paxvobis
Guest
Part One of Two
Hello,
I hope I’m posting in the right section. Regardless, I started attending Mass again almost a year ago and, thinking back over the last year, am interested in learning other people’s conversion/reversion stories.
Let me start mine. I apologize if it’s a little long but everything is so fresh in my mind.
I went to Catholic school from Kindergarden through the Sixth Grade. Our family never attended Mass (I asked why and my Dad said that he worshiped at the church of football) but I was fairly ‘devout’ if you could call it that. I believed in what I was taught, said my Our Fathers and Hail Marys at bedtime. I was proud of making my First Communion. I liked going to Mass. I didn’t find it boring and I remember ‘playing Mass’ with myself when I was 6 or 7.
But in the Sixth Grade I began to have some doubts. My parents became more liberal and so convinced me that there should be gay marriage, legal abortion, etc. They were upset that the Church didn’t support these things. I also had questions that I felt wouldn’t be answered correctly by the Church, chief among them being how we can believe in God/Christ’s Incarnation & Resurrection without proof.
When I went to public school in the Seventh Grade, my exposure to the Church ended and I, now an agnostic deist, quickly became seduced by the secular, sexualized culture. I still said some evening prayers though. I even made the sign of the cross. But when people asked me my religion I said “I don’t know, used to be Catholic.”
Years passed and I became almost totally anti-Catholic in my thoughts on sexual issues such as homosexuality, contraception, abortion, pre-marital sex, etc. But I felt incompleteness in my moral decision making. How did I know that I was doing in my daily life was the right thing? I had never subscribed to moral relativism, and believed that some things were clearly right and wrong.
So, I turned to the Bible. I considered Jesus to be a great, non divine teacher and began to read the Sermon on the Mount. It was hard to stomach but I understood how it would work if it were implemented. For a couple months, I would read some of the Gospels each night. Then, one Sunday, I decided to start watching Mass on a local television station. I wanted to start attending Mass again, but not being able to drive, I didn’t think anyone would take me.
Then, my cousins were in town one weekend in October and were going to Mass, so I asked if I could go and of course, was able too. I asked to be taken every week by a relative in town after that and she said yes.
At this time I started to learn a bit about the theology of the Church from the internet, and particularly this website. I started learning online what I was never taught at school: heresy, mortal sin, the necessity of confession before communion (I was shocked when I found this one out.
). I didn’t want to accept the Church’s teaching on sexual matters. The modernist in me was saying “You don’t have to go to confession. You don’t have to be against birth control, homosexual marriage, etc.” I continued to receive the Eucharist in a state of mortal sin, but despite reassuring myself a little voice inside of me (either anxiety, the invasion of grace, or both) was telling me that I was wrong.
Then (now early December), I decided to surrender myself to the Church’s positions on these matters. I remember my first Mass after this: the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. It was beautiful, an intense spiritual experience. It was also the first time I received Holy Communion on my tongue while kneeling after making an act of perfect contrition (having read about it on this forum). I went to confession and felt so relieved getting my sins absolved. But within a few days, I backslided.
Regardless, I became more devout despite my heretical opinions. I started to fast longer before communion and I would only receive on the tongue. My heterodox grandmother on my mothers side was shocked when I did this at Christmas Mass, and told everybody, who in turn told me that it was weird and I shouldn’t do it anymore.
But within a month, that little voice inside of me made the issue come to a head: Was I going to forsake all for the Church or be secular. I loved the Eucharist too much to leave the Church, so I came up with a compromise. I decided that homosexual sex, birth control, masturbation, willful lust, etc were venial sins and that I wouldn’t have to go to confession about them.
At about this time, my opinions started to clash with those at school. I learned alot about how the Church was right on these topics having now to defend the Church’s position on them. I also gained some insight on the Church’s position on sexual matters from being in a relationship. I understood that sexual sin denotes selfishness in an individual.
I was rather content with this until Holy Thursday. I distinctly remember at 12:00 Noon, when I was all excited over the Triduum, a profound feeling came over me that, after months of lying to myself, I just had to be completely obedient to the Magesterium and reconciled to the Church. I remember how liberated I felt walking right out of the confessional into the afternoon light that day.
Hello,
I hope I’m posting in the right section. Regardless, I started attending Mass again almost a year ago and, thinking back over the last year, am interested in learning other people’s conversion/reversion stories.
Let me start mine. I apologize if it’s a little long but everything is so fresh in my mind.
I went to Catholic school from Kindergarden through the Sixth Grade. Our family never attended Mass (I asked why and my Dad said that he worshiped at the church of football) but I was fairly ‘devout’ if you could call it that. I believed in what I was taught, said my Our Fathers and Hail Marys at bedtime. I was proud of making my First Communion. I liked going to Mass. I didn’t find it boring and I remember ‘playing Mass’ with myself when I was 6 or 7.
But in the Sixth Grade I began to have some doubts. My parents became more liberal and so convinced me that there should be gay marriage, legal abortion, etc. They were upset that the Church didn’t support these things. I also had questions that I felt wouldn’t be answered correctly by the Church, chief among them being how we can believe in God/Christ’s Incarnation & Resurrection without proof.
When I went to public school in the Seventh Grade, my exposure to the Church ended and I, now an agnostic deist, quickly became seduced by the secular, sexualized culture. I still said some evening prayers though. I even made the sign of the cross. But when people asked me my religion I said “I don’t know, used to be Catholic.”
Years passed and I became almost totally anti-Catholic in my thoughts on sexual issues such as homosexuality, contraception, abortion, pre-marital sex, etc. But I felt incompleteness in my moral decision making. How did I know that I was doing in my daily life was the right thing? I had never subscribed to moral relativism, and believed that some things were clearly right and wrong.
So, I turned to the Bible. I considered Jesus to be a great, non divine teacher and began to read the Sermon on the Mount. It was hard to stomach but I understood how it would work if it were implemented. For a couple months, I would read some of the Gospels each night. Then, one Sunday, I decided to start watching Mass on a local television station. I wanted to start attending Mass again, but not being able to drive, I didn’t think anyone would take me.
Then, my cousins were in town one weekend in October and were going to Mass, so I asked if I could go and of course, was able too. I asked to be taken every week by a relative in town after that and she said yes.
At this time I started to learn a bit about the theology of the Church from the internet, and particularly this website. I started learning online what I was never taught at school: heresy, mortal sin, the necessity of confession before communion (I was shocked when I found this one out.
). I didn’t want to accept the Church’s teaching on sexual matters. The modernist in me was saying “You don’t have to go to confession. You don’t have to be against birth control, homosexual marriage, etc.” I continued to receive the Eucharist in a state of mortal sin, but despite reassuring myself a little voice inside of me (either anxiety, the invasion of grace, or both) was telling me that I was wrong.Then (now early December), I decided to surrender myself to the Church’s positions on these matters. I remember my first Mass after this: the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. It was beautiful, an intense spiritual experience. It was also the first time I received Holy Communion on my tongue while kneeling after making an act of perfect contrition (having read about it on this forum). I went to confession and felt so relieved getting my sins absolved. But within a few days, I backslided.
Regardless, I became more devout despite my heretical opinions. I started to fast longer before communion and I would only receive on the tongue. My heterodox grandmother on my mothers side was shocked when I did this at Christmas Mass, and told everybody, who in turn told me that it was weird and I shouldn’t do it anymore.
But within a month, that little voice inside of me made the issue come to a head: Was I going to forsake all for the Church or be secular. I loved the Eucharist too much to leave the Church, so I came up with a compromise. I decided that homosexual sex, birth control, masturbation, willful lust, etc were venial sins and that I wouldn’t have to go to confession about them.
At about this time, my opinions started to clash with those at school. I learned alot about how the Church was right on these topics having now to defend the Church’s position on them. I also gained some insight on the Church’s position on sexual matters from being in a relationship. I understood that sexual sin denotes selfishness in an individual.
I was rather content with this until Holy Thursday. I distinctly remember at 12:00 Noon, when I was all excited over the Triduum, a profound feeling came over me that, after months of lying to myself, I just had to be completely obedient to the Magesterium and reconciled to the Church. I remember how liberated I felt walking right out of the confessional into the afternoon light that day.
)